Ranking Bowl Game Watchability by FEI

The Fremeau Efficiency Index (FEI) isn't out yet for this week, so this data is outdated, but I had to turn in my office pool's bowl selections today for the ESPN confidence poll, and because I believe in using the internet to steal money from my co-workers, I grabbed their latest numbers (11/27) and did a little Excel work to make my picks.

In doing so, I realized my spreadsheet might also have a secondary, and perhaps more profitable use: determining a ranking of bowl games to watch so as to maximize my December/January bowl game enjoyment quotient without tripping the spousal "all you're doing is watching football; why don't you spend some time with me!" line (which with Misopogal is about 2.4 games per week).

All I did was create a list of bowl games, select the expected winner based on their FEI scores, and compare the standard deviations in FEI to decide which games were blowouts, tossups, etc. The spreadsheet's up on Google Docs if you want to play with it yourself.

The results are interesting enough I thought them worth sharing. Nebraska over Washington is a holy lock. Northwestern and Texas Tech might as well be playing themselves (although not really: see below).

In the following chart, the team listed first is expected to win. The FEI StD is the standard deviation between the combatants' FEI scores. Those at the top are the biggest expected blowouts; at the bottom are the pick-'ems. Michigan's expected to lose to Mississippi State, but it's only about a moderate expectation.

Bowl

Teams

FEI StD

Holiday

Nebraska vs. Washington

0.18

Fiesta

Oklahoma vs. Connecticut

0.14

Las Vegas

Boise State vs. Utah

0.13

Military

Maryland vs. East Carolina

0.12

Humanitarian

Northern Illinois vs. Fresno State

0.11

Texas

Illinois vs. Baylor

0.11

Little Caesars

Florida International vs. Toledo

0.1

Music City

North Carolina vs. Tennessee

0.09

Poinsetta

Navy vs. San Diego State

0.08

Alamo

Oklahoma State vs. Arizona

0.08

Capital One

Alabama vs. Michigan State

0.08

St. Petersburg

Louisville vs. Southern Mississippi

0.06

Cotton

LSU vs. Texas A&M

0.06

New Mexico

BYU vs. UTEP

0.05

GoDaddy.com

Middle Tennessee vs. Miami (OH)

0.05

Outback

Florida vs. Penn State

0.05

BBVA Compass

Pittsburgh vs. Kentucky

0.05

Sun

Miami vs. Notre Dame

0.05

BCS Championship

Auburn vs. Oregon

0.05

Gator

Mississippi State vs. Michigan

0.04

Kraft Fight Hunger

Nevada vs. Boston College

0.04

Chick-fil-A

South Carolina vs. Florida State

0.03

Liberty

Georgia vs. Central Florida

0.03

Meineke Car

Clemson vs. South Florida

0.02

Independence

Air Force vs. Georgia Tech

0.02

Rose

Wisconsin vs. TCU

0.02

Insight

Missouri vs. Iowa

0.02

Sugar

Arkansas vs. Ohio State

0.02

Armed Forces

Army vs. SMU

0.01

Champs Sports

West Virginia vs. North Carolina State

0.01

Orange

Stanford vs. Virginia Tech

0

Hawaii

Hawaii vs. Tulsa

0

New Orleans

Troy vs. Ohio

0

Pinstripe

Syracuse vs. Kansas State

0

TicketCity

Texas Tech vs. Northwestern

0

Obviously this doesn't take into account things like having your entire offensive line return from injury, having your First Team All Big Ten Quarterback (Dan Persa: further proof that the dimension we are living in is not the real one) injured, teams that have historically put up embarrassing performances against a certain conference, or if your school's annual pre-bowl residence hall assault is liable to get a fifth of your team suspended*, so if you're planning on using this for your own pools, it's best you educate yourself on each teams' respective roster situations before making your selections.

I also added up the FEI scores of both opponents for each bowl game, to create an approximation of which bowls have the highest total performance, figuring games that feature better teams are more compelling. This quality of play index is pretty much in line with the general bowl ranks:

Bowl

Teams

Combined FEI

BCS Championship

Auburn vs. Oregon

0.577

Orange

Stanford vs. Virginia Tech

0.520

Sugar

Arkansas vs. Ohio State

0.493

Rose

Wisconsin vs. TCU

0.423

Capital One

Alabama vs. Michigan State

0.418

Chick-fil-A

South Carolina vs. Florida State

0.412

Champs Sports

West Virginia vs. North Carolina State

0.387

Cotton

LSU vs. Texas A&M

0.376

Insight

Missouri vs. Iowa

0.361

Sun

Miami vs. Notre Dame

0.283

Las Vegas

Boise State vs. Utah

0.263

Fiesta

Oklahoma vs. Connecticut

0.249

Meineke Car

Clemson vs. South Florida

0.239

Alamo

Oklahoma State vs. Arizona

0.230

BBVA Compass

Pittsburgh vs. Kentucky

0.218

Liberty

Georgia vs. Central Florida

0.172

Poinsetta

Navy vs. San Diego State

0.155

Holiday

Nebraska vs. Washington

0.153

Gator

Mississippi State vs. Michigan

0.148

Kraft Fight Hunger

Nevada vs. Boston College

0.129

St. Petersburg

Louisville vs. Southern Mississippi

0.112

Outback

Florida vs. Penn State

0.102

Pinstripe

Syracuse vs. Kansas State

0.094

Music City

North Carolina vs. Tennessee

0.091

Military

Maryland vs. East Carolina

0.088

Independence

Air Force vs. Georgia Tech

0.072

Texas

Illinois vs. Baylor

0.069

Humanitarian

Northern Illinois vs. Fresno State

0.000

Hawaii

Hawaii vs. Tulsa

-0.007

Armed Forces

Army vs. SMU

-0.047

TicketCity

Texas Tech vs. Northwestern

-0.049

Little Caesars

Florida International vs. Toledo

-0.127

New Orleans

Troy vs. Ohio

-0.154

New Mexico

BYU vs. UTEP

-0.179

GoDaddy.com

Middle Tennessee vs. Miami (OH)

-0.320

The data gave up some other interesting bowl tidbits:

USC (28th, with an FEI of 0.113) is the best team that's not going to a bowl game.

The best team not going due to things other than NCAA sanctions: Arizona State (41st, 0.061), those unlucky bastards.

Miami (Not THAT Miami) is the worst team going to a bowl; their -0.198 is 110th out of 120.

If you subtract the (negative of the) defensive FEI of each team's opponent from its offensive FEI, then add up the scores, we get an approximation of which games will feature a lot of scoring. Top 10 predicted score-fests:

Bowl

Teams

OFEI v Opp

Military

Maryland vs. East Carolina

0.76

Poinsetta

Navy vs. San Diego State

0.59

Independence

Air Force vs. Georgia Tech

0.56

Hawaii

Hawaii vs. Tulsa

0.55

Alamo

Oklahoma State vs. Arizona

0.48

BBVA Compass

Pittsburgh vs. Kentucky

0.48

Gator

Mississippi State vs. Michigan

0.47

BCS Championship

Auburn vs. Oregon

0.37

Chick-fil-A

South Carolina vs. Florida State

0.34

Armed Forces

Army vs. SMU

0.28

Finally, for a Watchability Index, I ranked, then combined all three factors:

Team Quality (TQ)

High-Scoring (HS)

Competitiveness (CO)

And came up with a final order of importance for games and how much they're worth watching, independent from school and conference interest:

Bowl

Teams

TQ

HS

CO

W.I.

Orange

Stanford vs. Virginia Tech

2

19

3

84

BCS Championship

Auburn vs. Oregon

1

8

18

81

Chick-fil-A

South Carolina vs. Florida State

6

9

13

80

Sugar

Arkansas vs. Ohio State

3

16

12

77

Rose

Wisconsin vs. TCU

4

17

11

76

Hawaii

Hawaii vs. Tulsa

29

4

1

74

Independence

Air Force vs. Georgia Tech

26

3

8

71

BBVA Compass

Pittsburgh vs. Kentucky

15

6

17

70

Gator

Mississippi State vs. Michigan

19

7

15

67

Liberty

Georgia vs. Central Florida

16

13

14

65

Alamo

Oklahoma State vs. Arizona

14

5

25

64

Pinstripe

Syracuse vs. Kansas State

23

18

4

63

Capital One

Alabama vs. Michigan State

5

15

26

62

Poinsetta

Navy vs. San Diego State

17

2

27

62

Armed Forces

Army vs. SMU

30

10

6

62

TicketCity

Texas Tech vs. Northwestern

31

11

5

61

Champs Sports

West Virginia vs. North Carolina State

7

34

7

60

Insight

Missouri vs. Iowa

9

30

9

60

Meineke Car

Clemson vs. South Florida

13

35

10

50

Military

Maryland vs. East Carolina

25

1

32

50

New Orleans

Troy vs. Ohio

33

23

2

50

Kraft Fight Hunger

Nevada vs. Boston College

20

24

16

48

Cotton

LSU vs. Texas A&M

8

31

23

46

Sun

Miami vs. Notre Dame

10

32

22

44

St. Petersburg

Louisville vs. Southern Mississippi

21

20

24

43

Texas

Illinois vs. Baylor

27

12

31

38

Las Vegas

Boise State vs. Utah

11

27

33

37

Outback

Florida vs. Penn State

22

28

21

37

Humanitarian

Northern Illinois vs. Fresno State

28

14

30

36

Fiesta

Oklahoma vs. Connecticut

12

29

34

33

New Mexico

BYU vs. UTEP

34

21

20

33

Music City

North Carolina vs. Tennessee

24

25

28

31

Holiday

Nebraska vs. Washington

18

26

35

29

Little Caesars

Florida International vs. Toledo

32

22

29

25

GoDaddy.com

Middle Tennessee vs. Miami (OH)

35

33

19

21

Right, so of course all the good ones are on at the same damn time. Also, usefulness of this chart is made more questionable considering it doesn't take into account last week's games because of the old FEI scores, and things like Oregon/Auburn predicted as less competitive than Pitt/Kentucky. But it was fun, no?

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*Last year's 20-percent turnout beat the 2008 record of 18 percent; this year with sponsorship from Capital One, expect about 27 percent of Michigan State's football team to join in the campaign, with Greg Jones given the ultimate honor of being the marauder who gets to turn to the camera and say "What's in YOUR wallet?"

One suggestion - when combining three factors as you've done above, rather than taking their ordinal rank and adding those together across factors, I recommend the following:

Take each value, then (1) subtract the smallest value and (2) divide by the range (i.e. difference between highest and lowest values).

Rather than an ordinal ranking system, you'll have something ranging from 0 to 100 that allows for greater variation. That is, if the difference between the highest-ranked and 10th highest-ranked in a category is significantly greater than the difference between the 50th and 60th ranked, that difference will be captured. This method provides more information than using a straight ordinal ranking.

Great idea. I thought about doing something like that right after I posted it. I'll probably do an update (and front-page it, which I kept this one off the FP because there was so much other content today) when the final FEI rankings are out.

Two years ago, I used FEI* and kicked ass, something like 97th percentile in the ESPN.com fantasy game - and impressed my friends in the process.

Last year, I used FEI and finished well below the median...FEI got smoked last year. Of course I talked trash before bowl season about having a superior method, and ended up looking like a fool. While I still like FEI best out of the computer models, last year's bowl record did not help its credibility.

This analysis leaves out the "I don't care at all about this team and as such could never get behind this program enough to watch them compete on television" factor, which is huge for me in determining which games to watch.

Let's also not forget the "They have a football team?" factor as well (Tulsa, Troy, Ohio).